Baltimore Evening Sun (22 April 1913): 6.

The Hon. Barratt O’Hara, of Illinois, author of “From Figg to Johnson” and prince of vice crusaders, now comes forward with his sovereign balm for all the sorrows of the world. It takes the form of a “morals court,” with five women judges. Why a “morals court”? Because all the present courts are immoral. And why make the judges women? Because male judges and juries always sympathize with the scoundrels of their own licentious sex, and so have no justice on tap for the wronged working girl.

According to the Hon. Mr. O’Hara, a working girl who complains to any of our existing courts that her employer has betrayed her is baffled of all justice. In the first place, the publicity of an open trial does her more harm than it inflicts upon her betrayer--whose crime, indeed, actually makes him a hero. And in the second place, she is very apt to be accused of trying to blackmail him, and what is worse, convicted of it and jailed for it. Hence the “morals court.” It will enable the complainant to make her charge, as the Hon. Mr. O’Hara puts it, “in confidence” and to judges already convinced that the accused should be hanged. Thus the world will be purged of its villains and the vice crusaders will get the sort of excitement they crave.

Alas for the Hon. Mr. O’Hara, but it appears that he has never encountered, in the course of his moral studies, the document known as the Constitution of the United States. If he will get a copy of it from some bartender and turn to Article VI, he will find that every man accused of crime in the United States, no matter what the court that deals with him, is guaranteed “a * * * public trial by an impartial jury.” * * * Thus one more fair peruna goes gurgling into the gutter! Thus another gallant plan for purifying the world at one fell stroke is knocked out by the fathers!

Standing of the clubs in the National Tuberculosis League for the week ended March 29:

New York....................467 Boston.......................268 Cleveland....................357 St. Louis....................232 Chicago.......................351 Pittsburgh..................224 Baltimore...................322 Philadelphia. ---- No report.

The estimable Democratic Telegram of this week has a large hand-painting of Major Joseph Whitney Shirley as its frontispiece. It is a pleasure to report that the major is still looking well, and, despite a certain paucity of thatch, as young as ever. In its literary section the Telegram says a lot of nice things about Dr. Goldsborough, announces that the Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus is down and out, denounces the Hon. William Luke Marbury as a bogus Democrat, and gives its imprimatur to the Phillips Psychiatric Clinic. Finally, it prints a short poem by Col. Jacobus Hook, entitled “The Violet,” and including the following suggestive strophe:

Some folks ain’t paid their taxes yet; They’re bashful as the violet.

How prohibition works in Atlanta, Ga., as reported by a Baltimorean just returned from that fair city:

I found no licensed saloons–but the whisky is vile. The consumption of a popular “nonalcoholic” drink, commonly known there as “dope,” has increased enormously. I went into a drug store for a glass of this “dope,” and after I had got it, remarked to the druggist that I supposed it was the only thing with a kick in it to be had in town. “Certainly not,” he answered. “Go into any of the clubs you see around here, introduce yourself, and get what you want. There’s one next door. Two are across the street. A couple are in the next block. You’ll find them almost anywhere. If you don’t see one, ask a policeman.” I went next door, introduced myself to a stranger, and was promptly given a card entitling me to the “privileges” of the club for 15 days. I ordered whisky to get the taste of the “dope” out of my mouth. A glass the size of a good-sized thimble was put on the bar, together with a bottle which bore no label, and a tumbler of ice water. The difference in size between the whisky glass and tumbler was pronounced. I took my drink--and had the explanation at once. I needed all that chaser! I asked for Sherwood, Mount Vernon, Roxbury, Pikesville and Monticello, but there was none to be had. I then tried Wilson and Hunter, being willing to take a blend if I could get the straight stuff. They seemed to be unknown. The bartender told me the name of the whisky he gave me, but I had vever heard of it before. However, it had plenty of kick. It was like the oldtime hackman’s whisky sold at Reilly’s, when his place was where the Casualty Tower is now. That was in the days of the French Froliques, 25 years ago. It cut a groove as it went down. A fine-looking policeman was standing at the bar, taking his as I got mine. It was nearly 2 o’clock in the morning.

When I reprinted a few paragraphs from the New York World the other day, describing the hoggishness to which Bangor, Maine, has been reduced by prohibition, the Hon. William H. Anderson objected to them on the ground that the World had “at least two distinct motives in [for?] trying to discredit prohibition.” Does he make the same nonsensical and unsupported accusation against the New York Sun? If not, then how does he account for the following statements in the Sun of April 21:

Sheriff Paterson, of Penobscot county, on April 12, announced that he would begin to clean up Bangor. * * * The best hotels, like the Bangor House, the Penobscot Exchange, and the Windsor, are serving no liquor to guests * * * But * * * the cheap hotels have their back rooms and the low groggeries their bottle-holders and their scouts and watchers. The Sheriff’s raiders are right after them, but it is almost impossible to get them all, or half of them.

In brief, the current effort to enforce the prohibition law (an effort prompted, by the way, by inside politics, and not at all by sincerity) has had the inevitable effect of driving trade from the decent hotels to the blind pigs and boot-leggers. This is exactly what the Hon. Mr. Anderson and his boozehounds propose to do for us here in Baltimore.

At the close of business Saturday, Col. Jacobus Hook had given away 17,855 cigars since January 1. This record puts Gen. James Young out of it. He has still to score 10,000.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Help the moralists to jail Helen Keller!

The more them ex-sheriffs think it over, the more they ain’t got no suggestions for the reform of the courts.

The Hon. William. H. Anderson believes that Mayor Brand Whitlock’s little book, “On the Enforcement of Law in Cities” is a bad book. The best of all reasons for reading it and pondering it. Your book seller will supply it at 75 cents.--Adv.

Mayor Brand Whitlock’s little book, “On the Enforcement of Law in Cities,” is regarded as immoral and pernicious by the following estimable organizations:

The Anti-Saloon League. The Lord’s Day Alliance. The Society for the Suppression of Vice.

As Dr. Zechiah Judd would say, “Verbum non amplius addam.”